Congratulations to Aliana Guzman for a successful summer of cancer research in the TCI SPARKED (Summer Program Advancing Research Knowledge and Education for Diversity) program. She was mentored by Elena Grossi, PhD.

Anisha defended her thesis with flying colors in May 2024, entitled, “The role of ATRX in-frame fusions in neuroblastoma cell states“

Congratulations to Dr. Dan Filipescu and team on a new publication in Nature Cell Biology! This publication highlights a role for macroH2A in the melanoma tumor microenvironment. A tour de force study involving mouse modeling, immunology, and stromal biology. Read the article here.

Congratulations to Saul Carcamo, Christie Nguyen, and members of the Bernstein lab for their finding that ARID2 loss in melanoma results in defective assembly of the PBAF complex, altering BAF genomic occupancy with consequences on chromatin accessibility, transcription factor binding, and transcriptional changes that promote metastasis. Read the article published in Cell Reports here.

We are so proud of Christie Nguyen for an impeccable and successful thesis defense ‘Altered transcription factor dynamics in PBAF-deficient melanoma’!

Congratulations to Dr. Saul Carcamo on his outstanding thesis defense focused on SWI/SNF subcomplex dynamics in malignant melanoma!

Congratulations to Drs. Flávia Ghiraldini and Dan Filipescu on their comprehensive review of histone variants and their chaperones in the pathogenesis of solid cancers. Read the article published in Nature Reviews, Cancer here.

Congratulations to Zulehka Qadeer and members of the Bernstein lab for their finding that that neuroblastoma in older children and adolescents harboring large deletions within the ATRX gene may be responsive to EZH2 inhibitor targeted therapy. The team found that EZH2 and REST cooperate to block genes responsible for neuron development, and EZH2 inhibition induces killing of ATRX altered neuroblastoma cells. Read the article published in Cancer Cell here.

Congrats to Zhen Sun, Dan Filipescu and colleagues for identifying the mechanism underlying de novo macroH2A histone variant deposition! This study showed that histone variant macroH2A is deposited across the mouse genome and subsequently pruned from transcriptionally active regions to establish macroH2A chromatin domains. Read the article published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology here.

Congratulations to Dr. Zhen Sun on his outstanding thesis defense!

Congratulations to Thomas Strub and members of the Bernstein lab for their discovery of the HDAC SIRT6 in BRAF-mutant melanoma as a novel epigenetic regulator of resistance to BRAF and MEK inhibitors. This work also identified IGFBP2 as a potential biomarker for MAPKi resistance. Read the article published in Nature Communications here.

Congratulations to Dan Hasson and the Bernstein & Hernando teams for their discovery of AMIGO2 as a survival gene and potential therapeutic target for metastatic melanoma. Read the article published in Molecular Cell here. This work was published Nov. 16, 2017 and made the cover!

Cover Image: An artistic representation of a genomic Self-Organizing Map, which displays the enrichment patterns of histone H3 acetylated at lysine 27 (H3K27ac) marking active regulatory regions in metastatic melanoma. In this issue of Molecular Cell, Fontanals-Cirera and Hasson et al. (pp. 731–744) mapped the melanoma enhancer landscape and identified AMIGO2 and its interactor PTK7 as a therapeutically targetable axis to inhibit melanoma cell survival. They further demonstrate that AMIGO2 is regulated by “super-enhancers” acquired during melanoma pathogenesis. Mosaic work by Dan Hasson. Photographed by Maru Teppei.

Congratulations to Dr. Zulekha Qadeer on her outstanding thesis defense!

Congratulations to Maddy who successfully ‘matched’ at ISMMS for a Dermatology residency! She will join our program in July 2018. Madeleine earned here undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Lafayette College. Between her 3rd and 4th year of medical school, she spent the year studying melanoma epigenetics in the Bernstein laboratory.

Congratulations to Jay Chung, Zhen Sun & Alex Gaspar-Maia on their publication in Cell Reports! Read the article here.

Congratulations to Dr. Jay Chung for successfully defending his thesis!

Congratulations to David Valle-Garcia! His paper ‘ATRX binds to atypical chromatin domains at the 3′ exons of zinc finger genes to preserve H3K9me3 enrichment’ has been published in Epigenetics. Read the article here.

PhD candidate Zulekha Qadeer speaks about her neuroblastoma work funded by St. Baldrick’s Foundation at the Northport fundraising event on Friday, March 11.

Congrats to Zu! Zulekha Qadeer awarded the Department of Defense Horizon Award for her proposal entitled “Investigating the Mechanisms Underlying ATRX Mutant Neuroblastoma”.